The Claw
by michael1812
Summary: Set during 'DNA Mad Scientist', what if things had gone differently? What if there had been no-one there to help her? Nothing but slow, agonizing pain. No hope. And the death of Aeryn Sun.


There were these claws, these mindboggling devices, sensations. Eyes that she had never known were there before. Fretful voices panicking all at once, turning into noise.  
She was weak and sick and angry, unwilling to take the guiding hand of monstrosity once it had been offered to her. A gentle smile, and eyes filled with pity and sadness and dark remorse tugged her nearer and the woman kept her warm by providing her a cloak and hood.  
"Please," the frightened child spoke in the face of terrible evolution, but it merely laughed. Its small dark eyes glistened when it approached her with giant steps.  
"You shouldn't be afraid," the scientist spoke. "You are in very capable hands."  
It curled its sharp claws to itself with a surgical precision and gentle stroke, before it smiled again. Arrogantly it then reached out towards her cheek and touched his creation lovingly.  
She would've backed away, but she was too weak.  
"The change has advanced swifter than I had expected," the scientist spoke softly. "Good."  
The woman with the giant hand didn't dare to look at the scientist or say anything in its presence. She had seen his wrath before and would not risk ever seeing it again.  
"Prepare her for surgery," the scientist spoke to the woman as it curled its lip in a monstrous smile.  
She would've fought him, she would've struggled, but she didn't.  
Her body was mutating, changing into something she did not know anymore.  
Her vision was clouded, and even in the silence of the scientist's lair was she deafened by incredible noise.  
She struggled to breathe and the walls were coming at her from all different angles, blinding her senses.  
She fell to the floor when her legs stopped moving, unable to hear the call of the mind.  
Instead other limbs started growing and all kinds of muscles and organs grew her legs together into mighty blue claws.  
"I can't," she cried out, but she didn't recognise the voice that actually said them.  
The woman with the giant hand helped her up and placed her upon the metal operating table.  
Then someone turned on a bright light above her and it pained all her senses.  
"Please," Aeryn pleaded to the woman with all the strength she had left. The last sense of self she could ever feel, for her body had alienated from her mind, maddening her senses in this insane light.  
"Kill me."

Kornata shivered and looked away from the mutating woman.  
Every cell in her body feared Namtar's anger, but she could not turn away from the dying woman's plea.  
Her blue claw gripped the only normal hand she had left, but she could feel its grip around her loosening and weakening with every second.  
"I can't disobey him," she said to her. "He'll kill me!"  
Namtar was preparing for surgery. She knew it wouldn't take long before he would come.  
Aeryn's hair was falling out, and wrinkles started forming on her changing face with every tremor and twitch. Her eyes turned white as they rolled upwards uncontrollably.  
The pain was excruciating.  
The woman with the giant hand turned away, terrified and disgusted, wriggling her hand free from Aeryn's blue claw.  
She examined her equipment and started loading a sedative into a silver syringe.  
"This," she said. "will take away the pain."  
When she plunged the syringe into Aeryn's veins, Aeryn attacked Kornata and grabbed her hand, thrusting the syringe deeper and deeper into her body. She wouldn't let go.  
They struggled and Kornata cried in fright.  
"Let go, please," Kornata pleaded. "He'll kill you anyway. When he's done with you! It doesn't matter now! You don't have to do this!"  
But the soldier wouldn't listen, fighting off the sedative's effects as long as it took, clinging on to the pain to stay alive.  
Her heart was pounding.  
Kornata desperately tried to free herself, but did not want to use excessive force against the dying woman.  
She screamed an alien scream and raised her giant, mutated hand into the air, but even in rage she would not attack her.  
Then the woman with the giant hand looked into the eyes of the mutating woman on the table which used to be Aeryn Sun.  
She calmed down and let go of the syringe.  
She knew Namtar would kill her if he found out about her betrayal.  
But what if he didn't have to know?  
One syringe would make all the pain go away and he would never know about it.  
Complications had arisen with every subject they had infected, when their mutation grew out of hand and beyond the body's acceptance.  
It had happened before.  
When Aeryn's consciousness faded away with the pain, Kornata carefully took out the syringe, turned around to her equipment and started filling it with a different substance.  
She looked down on to the mutated woman and gazed at the doorway, before plunging the deathly toxin into her alien bloodstream.  
"I'm sorry," she whispered to her.  
If Namtar had stepped into the surgery room now he would have been too late.  
As the toxin spread the body quickly ceased to function.  
The last thing she did was look up at Kornata silently, unable to speak as she succumbed to a different pain.  
When the tremors slowly stopped Kornata took a deep breath and was silent for a moment, as she looked upon Aeryn's corpse.  
But Aeryn Sun had died long before the heart had ever stopped beating.


End file.
